Kärcher

Capacity: 299.77kWp Installation date: November 2019

Kärcher has a clear vision of working to increase its environmental performance in its business activities and this project has seen NextEnergy Capital and Zestec support Kärcher to generate its own renewable energy onsite, reducing the sales, service, training and distribution hub’s energy bills and lowering its carbon impact.

Every year, the cutting-edge HQ facility in Banbury distributes 1 million cleaning machines, from their famous yellow pressure washers, to window vacs to municipal street sweepers. Across their 270 strong team, the focus on energy management and reducing the volume of energy required, where every day 1,240kWh is consumed, is at the centre of the business.

Under Zestec’s power purchase agreement (PPA) scheme, Kärcher will:

Reduce their electricity grid tariff by 14% for the solar energy generated and consumed on site

Generate 45% of its annual electricity consumption through the solar array

Displace c. 70 Tonnes of CO2e each year

Achieve forecast savings of c.£425k over the 25-year lease term

After a detailed survey and due diligence, Zestec’s partner, Solar Perfect designed and installed a 299.77kWp solar PV system using QCells solar modules and Solis inverters.

Mark Venner, Chief Operating Officer for Kärcher UK said:

“We are absolutely delighted with the partnership between Zestec and NextEnergy Capital.

We always had solar in mind for our new headquarters in Banbury and the PPA model ticked two important boxes for us.

Firstly, it puts responsibility for the installation and long-term maintenance in the hands of the experts, so we do not need to ourselves become experts in solar PV technology.

Secondly, our capital is better deployed in additional warehouse stock than in a solar PV system; a funded model allows us to do both. It has been a pleasure working with the team and I can endorse their quality customer-focused solar PPA solution.”

Now complete, c.75% of the solar energy generated onsite will be consumed by Kärcher, expected to be c.201,000 kWh per annum.

Ross Grier, Managing Director for NextEnergy Capital commented:

“We are very pleased to support Kärcher on their environmental ambitions and we know that the retail and distribution sectors are going to need to become more energy efficient in the coming years as we adapt to reduce our impact on climate change.

Schemes such as this will become increasingly important as the cost of energy to the consumer continues to rise and the National Grid struggles to invest quickly enough in infrastructure to keep up with increasing power demand schemes.

At NextEnergy Capital we are pleased to work with our colleagues at Zestec to provide innovative rooftop solar PPA solutions to the marketplace that allow others to take a long-term view on an element of their energy security whilst supporting their transition to a lower carbon world.”

Now complete, c.75% of the solar energy generated onsite will be consumed by Kärcher, expected to be c.201,000 kWh per annum.